Tài liệu Addressing the Mental Health Needs of Young Children in the Child Welfare System pdf

R E P O RT
Addressing the Mental Health Needs of
Young Children in the Child Welfare System
What Every Policymaker Should Know
Janice L. Cooper | Patti Banghart | Yumiko Aratani September 2010
Copyright © 2010 by the National Center for Children in Poverty
The National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) is the nation’s leading public
policy center dedicated to promoting the economic security, health, and well-being
of America’s low-income families and children. Using research to inform policy and
practice, NCCP seeks to advance family-oriented solutions and the strategic use of
public resources at the state and national levels to ensure positive outcomes for the next
generation. Founded in 1989 as a division of the Mailman School of Public Health at
Columbia University, NCCP is a nonpartisan, public interest research organization.
This issue brief explores what we currently know about the
prevalence of young children (ages birth to 5) in the child
welfare system, how the occurrence of maltreatment or
neglect affects their development, and the services currently
offered versus needed for these young children. It is based on
the “Strengthening Early Childhood Mental Health Supports
in Child Welfare Systems” emerging issues roundtable
convened by NCCP in New York City in June 2009. The
meeting brought together child welfare research, policy, and
practice experts and family leaders to discuss the mental
health needs of young children and suggest new directions
(See Appendix for list of participants). We also present our
analyses based on the National Child Abuse and Neglect
Data System (NCANDS) Child File, 2006. NCANDS is
a voluntary national data collection and analysis system
established as a result of the requirements of the Child Abuse
and Prevention Treatment Act (CAPTA).
AUTHORS

Janice L. Cooper, PhD, is interim director at NCCP and
assistant clinical professor, Health Policy and Management
at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.
Dr. Cooper directs Unclaimed Children Revisited, a series
of policy and impact analyses of mental health services
for children, adolescents, and their families. From 2005 to
2010, she led NCCP’s health and mental health team.
Patti Banghart, MS, is a research associate at NCCP who
conducts research on early care and education, child
welfare, and children’s mental health. She is part of NCCP’s
children’s mental health and early childhood research teams.
Yumiko Aratani, PhD, is senior research associate at the
National Center for Children in Poverty. Her research has
focused on the role of housing in stratification processes,
parental assets and children’s well-being
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This publication was supported by grants from the Annie
E. Casey Foundation and the Maternal and Child Health
Bureau, of the Health Resources Services Administration
(MCHB) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services under funding to Project Thrive.
Project Thrive is a public policy analysis and education
initiative at NCCP to promote healthy child development
and to provide policy support to the State Early Childhood
Comprehensive Systems (ECCS) initiatives funded by the
Maternal and Child Health Bureau. Thrive’s mission is to
ensure that young children and their families have access to
high-quality health care, child care and early learning, early
intervention, and parenting supports by providing policy
analysis and research syntheses that can inform state efforts to

strengthen and expand state early childhood comprehensive
systems.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of our project officers
Abel Ortiz, Annie E. Casey Foundation and Dr. Phyllis
Stubbs-Winn at MCHB. We also thank Louisa Higgins and
Shannon Stagman, research analysts with Project Thrive,
Dr. Sheila Smith, and Morris Ardoin, Amy Palmisano and
Telly Valdellon of NCCP’s Communications Team.
ADDRESSING THE MENTAL HEALTH NEEDS OF YOUNG CHILDREN IN THE CHILD WELFARE SYSTEM
What Every Policymaker Should Know
Janice Cooper, Patti Banghart, Yumiko Aratani
Addressing the Mental Health Needs of Young Children in the Child Welfare System 3
Addressing the Mental Health Needs of
Young Children in the Child Welfare System
What Every Policymaker Should Know
Janice L. Cooper | Patti Banghart | Yumiko Aratani September 2010
Introduction: Why Focus on Mental Health in the Child Welfare System?
e early years of life present a unique opportunity
to lay the foundation for healthy development. It is
a time of great growth and of vulnerability. Research
on early childhood has underscored the impact of
the rst ve years of a child’s life on his/her social-
emotional development. Negative early experiences
can impair children’s mental health and aect their
cognitive, behavioral, and social-emotional devel-
opment.
1
Developmental research has shown that
consistent, responsive, and nurturing early relation-
ships foster emotional well-being in young children,

as well as create the foundation for the behavioral,
social, and cognitive development essential for
school readiness.
2
Parents are one of the primary
inuences on a child’s healthy development. Given
parents’ central role, it is not surprising that chil-
dren’s experience of abuse and neglect especially
in early childhood can pose major risks to their
development.
Children younger than three years of age are the
most likely of all children to be involved with child
welfare services,
3
and young children who have
been maltreated are subsequently at risk for expe-
riencing developmental delays. Maltreatment in
children younger than 3 years of age has been found
to be associated with concurrent gross and ne
motor delays,
4
failure to thrive,
5
heightened arousal
to negative emotions,
6
speech and language delays,
7

and hypervigilance.

8

Age of the rst episode of maltreatment is associ-
ated with mental health problems in adulthood. For
example, maltreatment at age 2 to 5 has been linked
with anti-social personality disorder by age 29.
Younger ages of onset (birth to 2) were associated
with depression and other internalizing disorders
by age 40.
9

Research on preschoolers exposed to family
violence showed increased rates of disturbances in
self-regulation and in emotional, social, and cogni-
tive functioning.
10

Placement out of the child’s home also increased
the risk for mental health problems for young
children. Infants who experience maltreatment
and placement in foster care faced the greatest risk
for emotional and behavioral problems. Infants
in foster care had longer placements, higher rates
of reentry into foster care (experiencing recurrent
maltreatment and disruption of family bonds), and
high rates of behavioral problems, developmental
delays, and health problems.
11

Child welfare agencies have historically focused on

children’s safety and placement options but have
been ill equipped to address children’s developmental
needs and to access necessary and comprehensive
referrals for early intervention services. Since 2000,
the Federal Government has assessed states on their
“substantial conformity” with federal requirements
4
National Center for Children in Poverty
designed to promote positive outcomes in the areas
of safety, permanency and well-being for children
in the child welfare system. e process results in
a state Child and Family Services Review (CFSR)
report and a Program Improvement Plan.
12

In an analysis of 2002 Child and Family Services
Reviews (CFSRs) reports and Program Improvement
Plans (PIPs) from 32 states, investigators indicated
that 97 percent of those states did not meet the
standard in providing adequate services to meet the
“physical and mental well-being” of the children
under their care.
13
Only two states rated mental
health for the children they served as a strength
of their system.
14
e most common challenges
included lack of service capacity and poor quality
(11 states); lack of standardization in use and types

of health, mental health, and developmental assess-
ments (six states); inability to appropriately match
children with needed services (15 states); poor family
involvement (15 states); and the absence of appro-
priate placement options for children (nine states).
15

In general, states performed poorly when it came to
mental health compared to other indicators of child
well-being. Only one state in the review indicated
they had a developmental assessment appropriate for
very young children.
16

Changes to federal policy through the Child Abuse
and Prevention Treatment Act (CAPTA) in 2003
required child welfare agencies to have provisions
in place to identify and refer young children to early
intervention services.
17
e role of child welfare
workers to address children’s mental health was
therefore greatly expanded under such legislation.
How have child welfare workers addressed this new
role? How is the mental health and development of
young children in the child welfare system being
addressed?
is issue brief explores what we currently know
about the prevalence of young children (ages birth
to 5) in the child welfare system, how the occurrence

of maltreatment or neglect aects their develop-
ment, and the services currently oered versus
needed for these young children. It is based on the
“Strengthening Early Childhood Mental Health
Supports in Child Welfare Systems” emerging issues
roundtable convened by NCCP in New York City
in June 2009. e meeting brought together child
welfare research, policy, and practice experts and
family leaders to discuss the mental health needs of
young children and suggest new directions for policy
and practice. (See Appendix for list of participants.)
We also present our analyses based on the National
Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS)
Child File, 2006. NCANDS is a voluntary national
data collection and analysis system established as a
result of the requirements of the CAPTA.
Why Focus on Young Children (Birth to Age 5)?
Research shows that the younger the child, the more
likely he or she is to experience involvement with
the child welfare system. Children younger than
three years of age are the most likely of all children
to become involved with Child Welfare Services,
18

and they have the highest rate of victimization
of maltreatment among all age groups. Nearly 32
percent (31.9 percent) of all victims of maltreatment
were children age birth to 3, and 12 percent of those
children were under a year old. Boys under the age
of 1 had the highest rate of victimization at 22.2

per 1,000 children. In general, victimization rates
decrease with age.
19
Likewise, the number of children
with substantiated cases of abuse or neglect is high:
794,000 (10.6/1000).
20
ere were 510,000 children
in out-of-home care and 33 percent of children in
out-of-home care were age 5 or younger in 2006.
21
♦ Nationally, there were an estimated 1,760 child
fatality victims; and three-quarters (75.7 percent)
of child fatality victims were younger than 4 years
old. Infant boys (under one year of age) had the
highest fatality rate of 18.85 per 100,000 boys of
the same age.
22

Data source: Based on NCCP analysis on NCANDS Child File, 2006*
Missing
0.5%
Age 6-18
57%
Age 5
6%
Age 4
6%
Age 3
6%

Age 2
7%
Age 1
7%
under 1
11%
Graph 1: Proportion of victimized children by age group
Addressing the Mental Health Needs of Young Children in the Child Welfare System 5
♦ ere were more fatality victims in 2007, compared
with 1,168 in 2006 (see Graph 2).
♦ More than 85 percent of children who died as a
result of maltreatment are under age 6 (see Graph 2).
♦ Moreover, 21 percent of all children in foster care
entered prior to their rst birthday. Forty-ve
percent of all infant placements occurred within
30 days of the child’s birth.
23
Characteristics of Young Children in the Child
Welfare Systems
Young boys are more likely than young girls to be
abused.
♦ Boys under the age of one had the highest rate of
victimization at 22.2 per 1,000 children.
24
Among
young children, boys are more likely to be victim-
ized than girls, while girls increase the risk of
victimization aer age 6 (Graph 3).
Box 1: What defines child abuse and neglect?
Child abuse and neglect are defined by federal and state

laws. The Federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment
Act (CAPTA) provides minimum standards that States
must incorporate in their statutory definitions of child
abuse and neglect. The CAPTA definition of “child abuse
and neglect,” at a minimum, refers to:
• “Any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent
or caretaker, which results in death, serious physical or
emotional harm, sexual abuse, or exploitation, or an
act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of
serious harm.”
Nearly all States, the District of Columbia, American
Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto
Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands provide civil definitions
of child abuse and neglect in statute (MA defines it in
regulation). States recognize different types of abuse in
their definition of abuse and neglect including: physical
abuse, neglect, sexual abuse, and emotional abuse.
• Physical abuse: generally defined as “any nonacciden-
tal physical injury to the child” and can include strik-
ing, kicking, burning, or biting the child, or any action
that results in a physical impairment of the child.
• Neglect: frequently defined as the failure of a parent
or other person with responsibility for the child to
provide needed food, clothing, shelter, medical care,
or supervision such that the child’s health, safety, and
well-being are threatened with harm. Neglect also
includes: the failure to educate a child as required by
law in twenty-four states and U.S. territories; failure to
provide special medical treatment is defined as medi-
cal neglect in seven states and withholding of medical

treatment or nutrition from disabled infants with life-
threatening conditions is considered medical neglect in
four states.
• Sexual abuse: all states include sexual abuse in their
definitions of child abuse.
• Emotional abuse: nearly all states include emotional
maltreatment in their definition of abuse and neglect.
Thirty-two states provide specific definitions of emo-
tional abuse to a child.
• Victimized child is defined as a child for whose
incident of abuse or neglect was determined to be
accurate as a result of an investigation or assessment
or there is significant evidence to suspect maltreatment.
• Substantiated cases are defined as cases where state
law or state policy supported or found the allegation
of maltreatment or risk of maltreatment to be accurate
as a result of their investigation. This is considered to
be the highest level of finding by a State Agency.
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Resources. Administration for Chil-
dren and Families. Child Welfare Information Gateway ldwelfare.
gov/systemwide/laws_policies/statutes/define.cfm. Also see endnote 19.
Data source: Based on NCCP analysis on NCANDS Child File, 2006*
Graph 2: Proportion of children by age group who died as
a result of maltreatment
Age 6-18
N=168
14%
Age 5
N=36
4%

Age 4
N=52
5%
Age 3
N=74
7%
Age 2
N=144
15%
Age 1
N=180
18%
Under 1
N=513
51%
Data source: Based on NCCP analysis on NCANDS Child File, 2006*
Graph 3:
Gender of victimized children by age group (%)
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
Girls
Boys
Age 6-18Early childhood
51%
48%

46%
54%
6
National Center for Children in Poverty
Young children of color have high rates of
victimization and substantiated abuse/neglect.
♦ African-American children, American Indian/
Alaska Native children, and children of multiple
races had the highest rates of victimization at
16.7, 14.2, and 14.0 per 1,000 children of the same
race or ethnicity, respectively.
25
♦ Among young children (under age 6) who were
reported to be victimized in 2006, African-
American children were over-represented (26
percent) compared to their representation among
the total child population (14 percent). American
Indian children are also over-represented (two
percent) compared to their representation in the
total population (one percent) (see Graph 4).
♦ Among young children involved in child welfare
investigations, overall over one-third of children
are found to be victimized. is rate varies only
slightly across racial/ethnic groups (see Graph 5).
♦ Young African-American children have dispro-
portionately higher rates of referrals and substan-
tiation and removal from their parent’s home than
other racial and ethnic counterparts.
26
♦ Young African-American children are three times

more likely to be placed in foster care than young
white children.
27
Children who are abused or neglected are
more likely to have medical or developmental
conditions.
♦ Children with chronic medical or developmental
conditions experience an even higher level of
involvement with child welfare, including an
increased likelihood of removal from parental
care and a prolonged stay in foster care, compared
to their peers.
28
♦ Over 8,000 young children who are victim-
ized have some medical conditions. ere are
also about 700 to 1000 victimized children with
reported disabilities, however because of a large
amount of missing data, it is dicult to reliably
report prevalence information (Based on NCCP’s
analysis on National Child Abuse and Neglect
Data System (NCANDS) Child File).
Graph 4: Racial and ethnic composition of victimized
young children
Hispanic or Latino
20%
Undetermined
5%
White
61%
African American

26%
Asian
1%
American Indian
2%
Hawaiian
Other PI
0.4%
Graph 5: Proportion of those victimized among
investigated cases by race/ethnicity
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%
Hispanic or Latino
Undetermined
White
Hawaiian or
other PI
African American
Asian
American Indian
31%
29%
32%
35%
33%
32%
36%
Graph 6: Age distributions of children who are victimized
by race/ethnicity
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
5 years4 years3 years2 years1 yearunder

1 year
Hispanic or Latino
White
Hawaiian or
other PI
Black or
African American
Asian
American Indian
Data source: Based on NCCP analysis on NCANDS Child File, 2006*
26%
25%
30%
30%
27%
29%
16%
16%
16%
16%
15%
16%
15%
15%
14%
14%
14%
15%
15%
15%

13%
14%
13%
15%
14%
15%
15%
13%
14%
13%
14%
14%
13%
14%
16%
12%
Addressing the Mental Health Needs of Young Children in the Child Welfare System 7
Young children are most oen abused by their
parent or parents.
♦ Among young children, more than three-quarters
of them are abused by their parent or parents (see
Graph 7).
Caretakers of children who are victimized tend to
abuse alcohol and drugs, be exposed to domestic
violence, and receive public assistance.
♦ Analysis of the NCANDS Child File 2006 shows
that the most frequently reported conditions
that caretakers of children faced were domestic
violence followed by receiving public assistance,
drug use, inadequate housing and nancial prob-

lems. However, it should be noted that there is a
lot of missing information in this data.
List A: Top five conditions that caretakers of children
who are victimized face
• Domestic Violence
• Public Assistance
• Drug Abuse
• Inadequate Housing
• Financial Problems
Data source: NCCP’s analysis on NCANDS Child File in 2006
What Type of Maltreatment Do Young
Children in Child Welfare Face?
Maltreatment constitutes several forms of neglect
and abuse. ese range from physical neglect
(including medical neglect, abandonment, failure
to provide sustenance and security for a child),
to emotional and educational neglect. Abuse falls
into three major categories, physical, sexual and
emotional/psychological.
♦ Young children are most likely to experience
neglect or deprivation of necessities (75 percent),
followed by physical abuse (17 percent), psycho-
logical/emotional maltreatment (six percent),
sexual abuse (ve percent) and medical neglect
(three percent) (see Graph 8).
♦ Children removed from their home because of
neglect are more likely to be younger when they
enter the child welfare system (under 5 years
old) and experience less favorable permanency
outcomes.

29
Research shows that child maltreatment may begin
in utero with prenatal exposure to substances.
Other risks include neglect and abuse/neglect
leading to death in a small proportion of cases.
While uncommon, child fatalities in child welfare
are more likely to occur with young children.
Data source: Based on NCCP analysis on NCANDS Child File, 2006*
Graph 7: Type of perpetrator’s relationship to victimized
children
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%
Group Home
Legal guardian
Foster parent
Unmarried partner
of parent
Other
Other Relative
Friends/Neighbors
Parent
0.1%
0.1%
0.3%
3.5%
3.8%
4.8%
4.8%
72.6%
Graph 8: Type of maltreatment by age group (%)
Data source: Based on NCCP analysis on NCANDS Child File, 2006*

0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
Age 6-18Early childhood
Psychological/emotional
maltreatment
Sexual abuse
Medical neglect
Neglect or deprivation
of necessities
Physical abuse
Other
6%
9%
8%
18%
16%
63%
74%
17%
14%
5%
3%
3%
8
National Center for Children in Poverty
♦ Nearly 80 percent of children in foster care have
prenatal exposure to substances. Forty percent of

children in foster care are born at low birth weight
or prematurely.
30

♦ Of those victims who were medically neglected,
20.4 percent were younger than 1 year old.
31

Factors that predict risks for infant maltreatment
include the following:
32
♦ smoking during pregnancy;
♦ infant having two or more siblings;
♦ medicaid enrollee;
♦ unmarried;
♦ infant low-birth weight;
♦ less than high school education;
♦ teen mother;
♦ short spacing (under 15 months) between
pregnancy;
♦ poor pre-natal care; and
♦ adverse outcomes in prior pregnancy.
What Are the Mental Health Needs of Children
Age Birth to 5 and eir Families in the Child
Welfare System?
Research shows a high prevalence of mental health
disorders and developmental delays among chil-
dren and youth in the child welfare system. Young
children appear to have the greatest unmet needs.
♦ As many as 80 percent of all youths involved with

child welfare agencies have emotional or behav-
ioral disorders, developmental delays, or other
indications of needing mental health interven-
tion.
33
A signicant proportion of these children
(32 to 42 percent) are under age 6.
34
e preva-
lence of behavioral health problems experienced
by young children (2 to 5 years old) in child
welfare ranged from 32 percent to 42 percent.
35

Among young children (2 to 5 years old) in child
welfare, 32 percent had an identied mental
health need yet less than seven percent of these
children received services to meet those needs.
36

♦ Young children in child welfare were less likely
than any other age group to access needed
services (7 percent versus 16 percent and 26
percent respectively for other age groups).
37

♦ Only young children who had experienced child
sexual abuse were more likely to access mental
health treatment (nearly four times more likely
than their peers without such abuse).

38
♦ For preschoolers in child welfare who did access
mental health services, 40 percent entered the men-
tal health service system without a diagnosis or with
identied needs related to family stress and were
identied as having problems with adjustment.
39
♦ e number of children already in foster care
under the age of 3 with established disabilities and
developmental delays is almost 10 times the rate
of children in the general population.
40

♦ Seventy-ve percent of children entering foster
care between 12 and 36 months of age with no
formal diagnosis were at medium to high risk for
neuro-developmental problems.
41

♦ Fiy-ve percent of children under the age of
3 with substantiated cases of maltreatment are
subject to at least ve risk factors associated with
poorer developmental outcomes.
42

♦ irteen to 62 percent of young children entering
foster care have developmental delays, which is
four to ve times the rate found among all other
children.
43

♦ Infants who are maltreated oen experience
insecure attachment and have parents who had
insecure attachment relationships with their own
caregiver.
44

♦ A study of the prole of young children (4 to 6
year olds) in child welfare who used mental health
services suggests that young service users were
more likely to be male, in out-of-home place-
ments, white, have a caregiver with high educa-
tion, and experience multiple risks.
45

♦ Young children in one study who accessed mental
health services experienced variation in receipt
of services by gender and race. Young boys were
almost twice as likely to receive mental health
services as girls and Black boys were less than one-
third as likely to receive mental health services.
46

In addition, parents of young children have high
mental health needs that may also impact their
children’s well-being.
♦ According to the National Survey of Child and
Adolescent Well-Being, 15 percent of investigated
caregivers had a serious mental health problem.
47

Addressing the Mental Health Needs of Young Children in the Child Welfare System 9
♦ Maltreatment by a caregiver in childhood has
been associated with involvement in the child
welfare system later as a parent.
48

♦ One study in a large metropolitan area indicated
that an estimated 20 percent of parents who come
into contact with the child welfare system had a
mental health diagnosis.
49

♦ Within a group of mothers of young children
(age birth to 18 months), who had been reported
to the child welfare system but whose children
remained at home, 36 percent experienced
depressive symptoms.
50
♦ Parental mental health conditions were among the
factors that predicted behavioral disorders and
specialty mental health service use over three years.
51

Challenges Associated with Meeting the Mental Health Needs of Young Children
in the Child Welfare System
What Services Are Young Children with
Mental Health Needs in the Child Welfare
System Receiving?
Research demonstrates that young children with

child welfare involvement should receive a range
of services and supports to ensure their optimal
development. e target of these interventions
include enhancing relationships with caregivers and
improving social emotional competencies of young
children; promotion of social emotional skills and
well-being; helping parents in supporting the social
emotional development of their children; increasing
parents’ and caregivers’ ability to support the social
emotional competence of their children and facili-
tating access to needed developmentally appropriate
services and supports.
52

ese strategies should include:
♦ Assessments with a focus on maltreatment or
risk of maltreatment and placement history. ese
assessment should include key components such
as:
53

– medical history and status;
– developmental assessment; and
– mental health evaluation.
♦ Core elements of an assessment should encompass:
– child/caregiver interactions;
– family/parent functioning;
– assessment of risks;
– individual and family characteristics of
caregivers;

– caregiver mental health status; and
– caregiver’s parenting competencies.
♦ Eective intervention strategies promote
parent/caregiver and child relationships and
foster attachment. ese include:
– parent-child psychotherapy;
– parent/caregiver-child interactions guidance,
coaching and supports;
– relationship-based approaches;
– empirically-supported parent education strate-
gies; and
– social-emotional competency development and
skills-building.
Many young children in the child welfare system
are not receiving needed developmental supports.
♦ While many children who are maltreated may
be candidates for early intervention services,
research shows that few are typically enrolled.
54

♦ Less than 40 percent of states report that an
individual with social-emotional developmental
expertise is part of the multi-disciplinary team
that determines eligibility for Part C services.
55

♦ Among young children with identied needs, the
rate of service use is very low. Only 20 percent
of children age birth to 2 used developmental
services.

56

♦ Twelve months aer an investigation of maltreat-
ment, only 28 percent of children still younger
than 36 months of age were reported by case-
workers to have an Individualized Family
Service Plan (IFSP), the mechanism for deter-
mining service planning and access for the Early
Intervention Programs for Infants and Toddlers
with Disabilities (Part C) services.
57

10
National Center for Children in Poverty
♦ Approximately 37 to 67 percent of the families of
infants and toddlers with substantiated cases of
maltreatment received parent training or family
counseling through child welfare systems (prior to
18-month follow-up) but it is unclear the extent
to which these services focus on enhancing child
development.
58

Young children in the child welfare system are not
receiving the services and supports that they need
to meet their social and emotional-related devel-
opmental needs.
♦ One national study of child welfare agencies in
the U.S. found that more than half of all agencies
surveyed did not systematically require mental

health evaluations of children entering foster
care.
59

♦ e majority of child welfare agencies do not
screen children in the system for mental health
problems and among those that do, few report
using valid and reliable screening instruments.
60

♦ A recent study found that only 52 percent of states
included relationship-based treatments under the
benets available for Part C services and fewer
than 33 percent had programs that supported
access to respite services.
61

♦ One study of children in child welfare that
included young children (4 to 6 years old) showed
no improvement as a result of the mental health
services they received leading investigators to
question both the quality and appropriateness of
the interventions.
62

What Are the Most Important Barriers to Care?
Child Welfare agencies lack the necessary services,
training, and supports to meet the mental health
and developmental needs of young children under
their auspices.

♦ Child welfare workers oen do not recognize
developmental problems.
63

♦ When children are referred, early interventionists
may be unprepared to address the additional chal-
lenges inherent in working with maltreated chil-
dren, their families, and child welfare systems.
64

♦ Despite legislative requirements, many child
welfare agencies have not had an adequate referral
mechanism for developmental services.
65

Agencies lack a systemic approach for identifying
children with mental health and developmental
needs.
♦ Ninety-four percent of child welfare agencies
had policies about screening for physical health
problems, but only 47.8 percent had policies for
mental health problems, and only 57.8 percent for
developmental problems.
66

State systems oen do not have the supports in
place for a collaborative approach that meets the
service needs of children and their families.
♦ Short-sighted scal policies hamper eorts to
bring eective strategies to young children and

their families.
67

– Up to half of all states reported that they fund a
variety of mental health services for young chil-
dren through their mental health authority. ese
ranged from supporting early childhood mental
health specialists in community mental health
centers (21 states) to mental health consultation
in early childhood programs (26 states) to use of
social emotional screening tools (16 states).
– In 29 states Medicaid will only reimburse for
services to young children if they have a diag-
nosis. Ten states reported that they did not allow
Medicaid reimbursement for services delivered
in child care settings. Only 16 states reported
that they permitted for young children Medicaid
reimbursement for mental health consultation
without a diagnosis. Recall that up to 40 percent
of young children in specialty mental health treat-
ment did not have a diagnosis or were seen as a
result of stress-related conditions in the family.
68
– Medicaid policies in many states do not permit
reimbursement for some empirically-supported
services for young children. In addition, services
for children without a diagnosis but who may be
at risk are signicantly under-resourced.
69

♦ Poor provider capacity plagues the mental health
system for children in general and young children
in particular.
– A review of top issues that states indicated
they faced related to service capacity obstacles
included a lack of specialized medical providers,
lack of training of child welfare providers to
accurately assess mental health needs and the
lack of core competency in child maltreatment
issues among providers available to them.
70

Addressing the Mental Health Needs of Young Children in the Child Welfare System 11
– Policy research suggests the acute need to
enhance the training of mental health providers
to develop competencies in serving young
children.
71

– Recent studies of pre-schoolers indicate varia-
tion in the prole of children who experience
maltreatment. For example dierent types of
maltreatment and levels of severity are associated
with dierent forms of cognitive functioning and
behavioral disorders. is information has impli-
cations for practice and practitioners’ training.
72
♦ Only 10 states indicated that they required a
mental health assessment upon entry to child
welfare. Within this group, four states indicated

that they assessed based on developmental or age
criteria or type of maltreatment.
73

♦ Children with special health care needs who are at
risk of maltreatment face even more obstacles that
included poor language access, lack of specialized
supports, and diculty in obtaining mental health
services for this population.
74

– In a national review of teams that evaluated
children with special health care needs, non-
English language access was poor to non-
existent with less than 30 percent of providers
indicating that they could locate or access sign
language. Only 20 percent could provide access
in a language other than English or Spanish,
and only 50 percent were able to provide
Spanish language access.
– Moreover, nearly 70 percent of respondents
indicated that they did not have special training
or a special program for children with special
health care needs. Over 80 percent indicated
they needed more time to evaluate children
with special health care needs and over 70
percent reported that mental health referrals
for children with special health care needs were
more dicult than for children without special
health care needs.

♦ Policy mandates oen fall short: While the imple-
mentation of the 2003 Child Abuse Protection
and Treatment Act (CAPTA) mandates referrals
to Part C early intervention programs for chil-
dren in child welfare with developmental delays,
the mandate came with no additional funding.
Several challenges then arise including a shortage
of professionals trained to provide developmental
intervention services to children under 3 and their
families, and an apparent lack of resources, and
other support needed to provide services in a way
that addresses the needs of abused and neglected
children and their families. A recent preliminary
survey on CAPTA for Part C providers revealed:
that respondents assessed providers’ competence for
providing developmentally appropriate services for
those referred positively but considered the number
of providers needed as inadequate. In addition,
respondents were more likely to see a mismatch
between early intervention services and parents
who were involved with the child welfare system.
75
♦ For young children in child welfare, developmental
needs might be identied by child welfare case-
workers, primary care clinicians, or caregivers.
However, it is unclear who has the ultimate respon-
sibility for dierent aspects of a child’s wellbeing.
76

♦ For young children involved with child welfare,

participation in early intervention services may
decrease the frequency of children’s removal from
their homes and time spent in out-of-home care.
Yet, recent research demonstrates young children
involved with child welfare underutilize early
intervention services. is may reect limited
identication, poor linkages to available services,
or diculties accessing services.
77
In sum, there is a paucity of structural supports
to engage child welfare systems and other child-
serving agencies to be responsive to the develop-
mental needs of young children. ese structural
decits manifest in the following ways:
♦ systematic mechanisms for identication oen do
not exists or are weak and inadequate;
♦ referral and linkages to ensure complete transi-
tions for young children once they are identied
are oen tenuous, lack consistency and compre-
hensiveness, and are rarely systematically applied
even within one system or jurisdiction;
♦ the absence of eective policies and protocols to
ensure that children who are referred for mental
health services actually get the services that they
need;
♦ a shortage of providers with competency to meet
the developmental needs of young children and
their families across areas of need; and
♦ clear delineation of responsibilities for the devel-
opmental outcomes for young children in child

welfare is not shared across the systems in which
these children and their families are engaged.
12
National Center for Children in Poverty
What Policy Mandates Exists to Ensure Access to Care for Young Children?
e Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act
(CAPTA) was originally enacted in 1974 (P.L.
93-247). is Act was most recently amended and
reauthorized in 2003, by the
Keeping Children
and Families Safe Act of 2003 (P.L. 108-36). CAPTA
provides Federal funding to States in support of
prevention, assessment, investigation, prosecution,
and treatment activities and also provides grants
to public agencies and nonprot organizations for
demonstration programs and projects and other
activities such as research and evaluation. CAPTA
also sets forth a minimum denition of child abuse
and neglect.
78

e 2003 CAPTA amendment addressed the
underutilization of Part C early intervention
services available for eligible children under age 3
in the child welfare system. e amendment speci-
ed that children under age 3 with substantiated
cases of abuse or neglect must have access to early
intervention under Part C of the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act. States were required
to put in place “provisions and procedures for

referral of a child under the age of 3 who is
involved in a substantiated case of child abuse or
neglect to early intervention services funded under
Part C.” Additionally, the 2004 reauthorization
of the Individuals with Disabilities Education
Improvement Act (IDEIA) required states to
describe their “policies and procedures that require
the referral for early intervention services under this
part of a child under the age of 3 who is involved in
a substantiated case of child abuse and neglect” in
their application for Part C funding.
79

CAPTA is expected to be reauthorized in 2010 which
oers an opportunity to address the implementation
challenges especially as it relates to service capacity and
competency. See recommendations section on page 17.
e Fostering Connections to Success and
Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 helped improve
outcomes for children and youth in foster care by
promoting permanent families through relative
guardianship and adoption incentives, extending
support to children who are age 21, improving educa-
tion and health care supports, and expanding support
for American Indian and Alaska native children.
e legislation helped improve health care coordi-
nation and access to care for children in foster care
by requiring state child welfare agencies to work
with Medicaid agencies to create a coordinated
health plan to ensure children in foster care have

appropriate screenings, assessments, and follow-up
treatment and that this information is shared with
the appropriate service providers.
80
e Patient Protection and Aordable Care Act,
recently signed in March of 2010, included in its
provisions $1.5 billion in mandatory funding over
5 years for high quality, evidence-based, voluntary
home visiting programs. e Maternal, Infant,
and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program of
the Aordable Care Act makes grants available to
States, Tribes, and territories in order to improve
child outcomes through the delivery of home visita-
tion services that focus on child health and develop-
ment, prenatal and maternal health, parenting skills
and supports and the prevention of child abuse and
neglect. e law requires states to give priority to
providing services to identied “high-risk” children
and families, including families with histories of
child abuse or neglect and families that have been
involved with the child protection system.
Forty-nine states, the District of Columbia, and ve
territories applied for and were awarded funding
under this federal initiative.
e legislation requires grantees to conduct a
statewide needs assessment in the rst six months of
funding to identify communities with high concen-
trations of risks including:
♦ premature birth, low-birth weight infants, and
infant mortality (including infant death due to

neglect), or other indicators of at-risk prenatal,
maternal, newborn, or child health;
♦ poverty;
♦ crime;
♦ domestic violence;
♦ high rates of high-school drop-outs;
♦ substance abuse;
♦ unemployment; and
♦ child maltreatment.
Addressing the Mental Health Needs of Young Children in the Child Welfare System 13
e needs assessment must also examine the quality
and capacity of existing early childhood home visi-
tation programs including the number of families
and young children served, possible gaps in service
delivery, and the extent to which these programs are
meeting the needs of eligible families. Grantees are
required to implement an evidence-based program
model with measurable outcomes in one of the
following areas: improvement in maternal and child
health, childhood injury prevention, school readi-
ness and achievement, crime or domestic violence,
family economic self-suciency, and coordination
with community resources and supports.
81

e Patient Protection and Aordable Care Act
(PPACA), also included provisions that can address
service capacity and provider competency chal-
lenges that states currently face. In addition, several
provisions in the law have implications for reducing

racial and ethnic disparities. Selected key compo-
nents include:
82
♦ state work force development grants in PPACA
($158 million total: $8 million planning and $150
million implementation (2010) and SSAN;
♦ co-location of primary and specialty mental
health in community settings ($50 million 2010;
2011-2014 SSAN);
♦ community health workers grants (SSAN);
♦ school-based health centers (2010-2014 SSAN);
♦ curricula development grants (SSAN);
♦ primary care training ($125 million 2010; 2011-
2014 SSAN);
♦ mental and behavioral health care training ($35
million 2010-2013 to include social workers,
psychologists, professionals and paraprofessionals
in child and adolescent mental health);
♦ public health services workforce loan repayment
public health workers ($195 million 2010; 2011-
2015 SSAN);
♦ loan repayment pediatric specialist ($30 million
2010-2014; child/adolescent mental health and
behavioral health professionals($20 million
2010-2013);
♦ centers of excellence for recruitment and reten-
tion under-represented minorities ($50 million
2010-2015);
♦ disparities data collection and analysis (SSAN
2010-2014);

♦ health centers and clinics ($34 billion 2010-2015);
♦ maternal and child health services for post-partum
conditions ($3 million 2010; 2011-2012 SSAN); and
♦ quality improvement (technical assistance) $20
million and quality improvement measurement
($17 million) over 4 years
SSAN=legislative language indicates no amount but “such sums
as may be necessary.”
Opportunities for Addressing the Mental Health Needs of Young Children
What services should young children in the
child welfare system be receiving?
Evaluations of infants displaying signs of abuse or
neglect should have the following: a pediatric assess-
ment to highlight any medical conditions or recom-
mendations for further tests and health screenings;
a developmental assessment with standardized
measures to determine the infants development;
and a mental health assessment that includes family
history, infant’s social relatedness, infant’s behav-
ioral organization, their response to stress, signs of
maltreatment, and risk for placement disruption.
83

To support such assessments, child welfare workers
need training on what questions to ask to help
them identify infants at risk and to understand how
children’s developmental and emotional needs can
impact parents. ey also need knowledge about
programs that assess and serve infants and their
families such as early intervention and Early Head

Start to which to refer families.
84
♦ e American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)
recommends that, when possible, child welfare
agencies try to access or establish multidisci-
plinary teams to routinely conduct health screen-
ings and assessments.
85
14
National Center for Children in Poverty
♦ Access to specialty mental health services, in one
study that included 4 to 5 year old children who
received in-home case management services, was
associated with an
up to 40 percent reduction in
out-of-home placements.
86

Researchers have begun to identify empirically-
supported instruments for assessing the mental
health of young children in child welfare.
Screening and assessment tools form a continuum
of instruments used to establish need for an inter-
vention or to rule out the existence of a problem.
Assessments can reinforce the need for a specic
intervention, the intensity of the intervention and
the necessity of other supports. It is important that
both screening and assessments are accurate and
render valid and reliable results. Equally important
is the need for screenings and assessments to be

accurately interpreted, especially in the case of child
maltreatment. It is generally acknowledged that
in the eld of measurement, especially assessment
tools for young children, there are few that meet
the gold standard.
87
ere are however many tools
that have been standardized and validated to screen,
assess and provide information on indications of
social emotional development, and mental well-
being. A study of the substantive and psychometric
properties of mental health screenings designed for
children age 10 and younger, identied 19 instru-
ments that met review criteria and seven that show
above-average measurement properties, and have
evidence of validity with families similar to child-
welfare involved families.
88

Policy and practice-related research indicates use
of standardized and validated screening and assess-
ment tools is inconsistent. Among many clinicians
rates of use of standardized tools are low.
89
Obstacles
to the use of standardized and validated tools
include lack of reimbursement for the extra time
spent contacting an assessment, lack of providers’
knowledge of its added value and poor provider
training.

90
A range of screening and assessment tools
for young children and for young children who have
been exposed to trauma can be reviewed in two
NCCP documents: Social Emotional Development
in Early Childhood: What Every Policymaker Should
Know and Strengthening Policies to Support Children,
Youth and eir Families Who Experience Trauma.
91
Use of research-informed eective practices is also
gaining traction and have been developed speci-
cally for or adopted for use with young children
involved in the child welfare system. (See Box 2).
ere are a number of interventions designed for
young children who have experienced maltreat-
ment or may be at at increased risk for child welfare
involvement. Common targets of eective strategies
include:
♦ support for and development of strong, appro-
priate attachments;
♦ support for and development of the ability to
form strong, nurturing relationships with parents
or primary caregivers; and
♦ development of social emotional competence
including the ability to form strong peer and
adult relationships and interact positively, and to
manage and regulate emotions.
e vast body of research from both developmental
science and neuroscience that point to the pivotal
and important role of the rst years of life compels

an urgent policy response. Nowhere is the need for
immediacy more acute and apparent then when
it comes to young children who have experienced
maltreatment or for whom there appears clear risks.
e practice response and underlying policies must
ensure quality. e existence of data that demon-
strates the eectiveness of an intervention is crucial
especially strategies that reect the settings where
young children frequent, with the types and levels
of maltreatment young children in child welfare
experience, and bound by the cultural, economic
and social forces that shape their lives.

Box 2 describes a range of empirically-supported
interventions that have been used with young
children in child welfare. For policymakers and
practitioners charged with implementing these and
other practices there is the need to ensure optimal
conditions for implementation including, workforce
competence, workforce capacity, scal resources,
family and caregiver engagement and accountability.
Accountability requires that adopted practices meet
the cultural and linguistic needs of the population of
focus and attain similar or superior outcomes across
groups of young children who have been maltreated
or who are at risk of child welfare involvement.
Addressing the Mental Health Needs of Young Children in the Child Welfare System 15
Box 2: Evidence-based interventions used by practitioners working with children involved in the foster care system to address the
developmental needs often associated with maltreatment.
Parent Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT): is a short-term, evidence-

based parent training intervention for families with young
children (ages 2 to 6) who experience behavioral, emotional,
or family problems. The program consists of two phases: Child
Directed Interaction (CDI) and Parent Directed Interaction (PDI).
CDI focuses on strengthening parent-child attachment before the
second phase PDI teaches structured and consistent discipline.
During the initial didactic session a coach will model and role
play with the parent certain skills. Following this the coach
prompts the parent while interacting with the child through a
hearing device. Typically treatment lasts for 10 to 16 weekly, one-
hour sessions. Progress on the parent-child interactions is coded
at each session and treatment is complete once parents have
mastered the skills taught in the both the CDI and PDI phases and
the child’s behaviors are within normal limits.
Source: Herschell, A.; Calzada, E.; Eyberg, S. M.; McNeil, C. B. 2002. Parent-child
interaction therapy: New directions in research. Cognitive and Behavioral Practice 9: 9-16
p.ufl.edu/Literature/HershellCalzadaEybergMcNeil2002.pdf
Triple P – Positive Parenting Program: promotes positive parenting
and caring relationships between parent and child by offering
information to parents through a variety of sources including:
multi-media, professional consultations, and self-directed modules.
Triple P involves several tiers of training including: Standard,
Group, Enhanced, Self-directed, and Media. At the first level
parents either receive training around managing difficult
child behaviors and setting behavior goals as a single family
(Standard) or in groups (Group). The Standard Triple P is a
10-session program which reviews causes of children’s behavior
problems, strategies for encouraging children’s development,
and strategies for managing misbehavior. The sessions include
modeling, rehearsal, self-evaluation, homework tasks, and

observations of parent and child interactions. In Group Triple
P parents learn positive parenting skills in groups of 10-12
parents over 8 sessions. The Self-Directed Triple P includes a
parent’s self-help workbook for a 10-week self-help program. The
Enhanced Triple P is for families requesting or requiring further
assistance. This part of the program is individually tailored often
addressing parental issues such as depression or marital commu-
nication. Typically three individual therapy modules: Practice,
Coping Skills, and Partner Support are used individually or in
combination.
Source: Sanders, M. R; Markie-Dadds, C.; Turner, K. M. T. Theoretical, Scientific and Clinical
Foundations of the Triple P–Positive Parenting Program: A Population Approach to the Promo-
tion of Parenting Competence. Accessed Sept. 1, 2010 from: />pdf/Parenting_Research_and_Practice_Monograph_No.1.pdf
Thomas, R; Zimmer-Gembeck, M. J. 2007. Behavioral Outcomes of Parent-Infant Interactive
Therapy and Triple P Parenting Program: A Review and Meta Analysis. Journal of Abnormal
Child Psychology 35(3): 475-495.
Attachment and Bio-behavioral Catch-up Intervention: targets the
dysregulation of infants and toddlers in foster care by helping
foster care parents provide nurturing care. The three subcompo-
nents of the intervention help foster parents to: learn to follow the
child’s lead, the value of touching, cuddling, and hugging their
child, and to create conditions where the child can express their
emotions and learn to recognize emotions. The program consists
of 10 weekly sessions where parents learn about nurturing skills,
practice skills while interacting with the child, watch their video-
taped interactions with the foster child to see their progress, and
discuss questions and any challenges with the trainer.
Source: Mary Dozier, M.; Peloso, E.; Lindhiem, O.; Gordon, M. K.; Manni, M.; Sepulveda,
S.; Ackerman, J. 2006. Developing Evidence-based Interventions for Foster Children: An
Example of a Randomized Clinical Trial with Infants and Toddlers. Journal of Social Issues

62(4): 765 783
Infant Parent Psychotherapy (IPP): designed for parents and infants
whom have not formed a secure attachment, sometimes related
to trauma or violence experienced by the parent or in the home.
During therapy sessions parents express thoughts and feelings
about: their experiences as a child, the parent’s hopes and expec-
tations for the child’s future, and the parent’s relationship with other
people. The therapist observes and gives feedback on the parent’s
interactions with the infant to help the parent and child form a
secure attachment and help promote positive child development.
Source: Lieberman A. F. 1992. Infant-parent psychotherapy with toddlers. Development and
Psychopathology 4: 559-574. Cicchetti, D.; Rogosch F. A.; Toth S. L. 2006. Fostering secure
attachment in infants in maltreating families through preventive interventions. Development
and Psychopathology 18(3): 623-649.
Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP): CPP interventions are guided
by the unfolding child–parent interactions and by the child’s free
play with developmentally appropriate toys selected to elicit
trauma play and foster social interaction. The initial assessment
sessions include individual sessions with the mother to communi-
cate emerging assessment findings, agree on the course of treat-
ment, and plan how to explain the treatment to the child. Weekly
joint child–parent sessions are interspersed with individual
sessions with the mother as clinically indicated. The interventions
target for change maladaptive behaviors, support develop-
mentally appropriate interactions, and guide the child and the
mother in creating a joint narrative of the traumatic events while
working toward their resolution. The treatment manual includes
clinical strategies and clinical illustrations to address the following
domains of functioning: play; sensorimotor disorganization and
disruption of biological rhythms; fearfulness; reckless, self-endan-

gering, and accident-prone behavior; aggression; punitive and
critical parenting; and the relationship with the perpetrator of the
violence and/or absent father.
Source Lieberman, A.; Van Horn, P.; Ippen, C. G. 2005. Toward Evidence-Based Treatment:
Child Parent Psychotherapy with Preschoolers Exposed to Marital Violence. The Journal of the
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 44: 1241-1248.
Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care for Preschoolers (MTFC-P):
MTFC-P is an alternative to residential treatment for foster children
ages 6 and under. These young children are especially vulnerable
to long-term difficulties in home, school, and community settings
and are at high risk for behavioral, emotional, and developmental
problems. MTFC-P is specifically tailored to the needs of 3 to
6 year-old foster children and has been shown to be effective
at promoting secure attachments in foster care and facilitating
successful permanent placements (such as, reunification with birth
parents and adoptions). MTFC-P capitalizes on more than 40
years of research and treatment activities that have supported
the notion that families, and particularly parents who are skilled
and supported, can have a powerful socializing role and positive
influence on troubled youth. MTFC-P is delivered through a treat-
ment team approach in which foster parents receive training and
ongoing consultation/support from program staff, children receive
individual skills training and therapeutic playgroup, and birth
parents (or other permanent placement resources) receive family
therapy. MTFC-P emphasizes the use of concrete encouragement
for pro-social behavior; consistent, non-abusive limit-setting to
address disruptive behavior; and close supervision of the child. In
addition, the MTFC-P intervention employs a developmental frame-
work in which the challenges of foster preschoolers are viewed
from the perspective of delayed maturation (rather than strictly

behavioral and emotional problems).
Source:
16
National Center for Children in Poverty
State and local examples of eorts to address
young children in the child welfare system
Vermont – e Children’s Upstream Project (CUPS)
Vermont assesses all children in child welfare and
who are at-risk for placement using the two vali-
dated instruments (the ASQ and the CBCL). Fiy
percent of all child welfare workers get mental
health training. rough the CUPS project it uses
mental health consultants to oer training, tech-
nical assistance, and support to child care providers
and parents who express interest in assistance. e
services, as with the other mental health consulta-
tion programs, focused on improving the capacity
of the caregivers and improving their relationships
with each other and the children. Services included
training for child care providers in behavioral
management, anger management, positive and
eective discipline, stress reduction, and stress
management.
Additionally, the state has made an eort to expand
skills and knowledge regarding early childhood
mental health throughout the service delivery
system and coordinate services for young children.
ey believe that the ability to promote social and
emotional development of children, identifying
needed emotional supports, and addressing mental

health issues is not the purview of any one disci-
pline. In line with this philosophy, Vermont’s Early
Childhood and Family Mental Health Practice
Group is developing a set of competencies for
educators, therapists, childcare providers, home
health care providers, and child welfare workers
to address the skills and knowledge necessary to
provide services at four dierent levels. e levels
correspond roughly with educational attainment
from the associate degree up through a doctorate.
e immediate use of the materials is to determine
the competencies necessary to bill administrative
Medicaid for consultation. e hope is that a special
endorsement or certication will be created in the
future.
92
e state funds intensive family-based interventions
for all children at risk of an out-of-home placement
and bills for parent-child interaction/relationship-
based treatments has identied a mechanism for
billing appropriately.
Nurturing the Families of Louisiana Parenting
Program
Focusing on the chronic neglect of low income
parents of children age birth to 5 years, the
Nurturing the Families of Louisiana Parenting
Program builds nurturing skills as alternatives
to abusive child rearing attitudes and parenting
practices. is family-based program focuses on
teaching age appropriate expectations, discipline

with dignity, empathy towards children’s needs,
parental and child empowerment, positive self-
worth and parent-child role clarication. ere
are 13 Nurturing Parenting Programs for parents
and children prenatal to 18 years that maintain
an overall objective of stopping cycles of abuse,
reducing rates of recidivism, reducing rates of juve-
nile delinquency and alcohol abuse, and lowering
rates of teenage repeat pregnancies. Designed with
race and ethnic dierences among populations in
mind (such as Hmong, African American, Arabic,
Haitian and Hispanic), the program incorporates
trained facilitators and sta from the surrounding
community who have similar backgrounds to
targeted parents.
In Louisiana, the curriculum is delivered through
a network of community-based family resource
centers and supported by the Department for
Social Services using Title IV-B (Child Welfare)
funding. Provided in group and home-based
formats, the Nurturing the Families of Louisiana
program requires parents and children to attend
16 group based sessions with concurrent intermit-
tent home-based practice sessions. ere are 15
competency-related topic areas with 80 available
lessons complemented by specialized lessons to
meet the individual family needs and reinforce
material in home-based instruction. Examples of
topics include child development, empathy, disci-
pline (trauma is included but the focus is on familial

separation). Individual assessments are performed
to create proles so that curriculum can be targeted
to individual parent needs. Together, the parent
and parent educator review parenting strengths and
weaknesses before developing the Family Nurturing
Plan. When possible, families are grouped around
competencies for peer support and lessons. For
the foster care population, the Nurturing Program
model is adapted to the specic family and sessions
Addressing the Mental Health Needs of Young Children in the Child Welfare System 17
are coordinated as supervised visitation for parents
and children. e Adult-Adolescent Parenting
Inventory-2 instrument (AAPI-2) is also later used
for pre- and post-testing to assess knowledge and
skills gained aer program completion.
93
Los Angeles County- Coordinated Services
Action Team
LA County implemented its’ Coordinated Services
Action Team (CSAT)* to accomplish the following:
ensure the consistent, eective, and timely screening
and assessment of mental health needs across all
populations of children served by Department of
Children and Family Services (DCFS); coordinate
sta who currently link children to services within
and across oces; and to systematically review
capacity, access and utilization to current and future
services. e CSAT and a Referral Tracking System
was largely developed aer identifying a lack of a
coordinated vision guiding the systematic mental

health screening, assessment, and receipt of appro-
priate services for foster youth. e CSAT seeks
to coordinate, structure, and streamline existing
programs and resources to expedite mental health
assessments and service linkage, once a positive
mental health screen or mental health trigger has
been presented.
Each CSAT team collects, manages and analyzes
data to provide local DCFS and DMH managers
reports that will track trends and utilization
patterns. e CSAT Lead will provide aggregate
data for all of Los Angeles County to central DCFS
and DMH management that will identify global
and local trends, capacity issues, service gaps and
successful innovations. is centralized data is also
used as a means of quickly identifying and tracking
problems with specic providers, types of services,
and the CSAT Referral Tracking System itself.
94
Recommendations
♦ e federal government, states, territories, and
tribes should promote and incentivize the use
of eective (empirically supported) behavioral
screenings and/or assessments for children aged
birth to 5.
♦ Child abuse prevention and treatment strategies
can and should be integrated for best outcomes at
the population level and the federal government,
states, territories, and tribes should promote this
integration.

♦ In order to best serve children, federal, state and
tribal government policies including scal poli-
cies should fund supports and treatment for the
parent or primary caregiver not just the parent or
the child.
♦ State, territories, and tribes should increase
prevention and early intervention mental health
services for both children who are victimized and
who were at-risk of maltreatment, and the federal
government should increase scal supports for
these eorts.
♦ States, territories, and tribes should use the provi-
sions within the Aordable Care Act to ensure
that their most vulnerable citizens are appropri-
ately serve including young children with special
health care needs that also need access to mental
health services and supports. Specically:
– enhanced resources for provider capacity,
cultural and linguistic competency and special-
ization oer opportunities to increase the
number of service providers with competencies
in early childhood development and behavioral
health, child maltreatment and young children,
empirically supported and culturally appro-
priate assessments and treatment for young
children, and interagency collaboration and
systems development;
– funding for centers of excellence oers the
opportunity to promote the development of
centers focused on the unique needs of young

children and their caregivers in the child
welfare system and at risk of entry;
– conducting comparative analysis research and
work in quality that includes a focus on young
children in child welfare; and
– leveraging the opportunities including funding
through the federal initiative to collect data on
disparities could provide states and tribes with
needed information on who they are serving
and how eectively.
18
National Center for Children in Poverty
♦ e federal government should make vulner-
able children across the age span but particularly
young children, their siblings and their families
a health care nance policy priority. Specically
within the Aordable Care Act it should:
– provide guidance and opportunities to health
exchanges and to health insurance plans to
develop eective, culturally and linguistically
responsive strategies to meet the mental health
needs of young children with child welfare
involvement and at risk for child welfare
involvement;
– ensure compliance with the Wellstone-
Domenici Mental Health Parity law* as it
pertains to young children, their caregivers and
families; and
– document outcomes for young children with
child welfare involvement or at risk for involve-

ment as a result of changes to health care
nancing including reforms as a result of the
Children’s Health Insurance Reauthorization
Act (CHIPRA).**
♦ States, territories, and tribes should improve their
eorts to collect information on both caregivers
and children who are investigated for abuse or
neglect so that such information can be used
to better identify risk and preventive factors
for promoting well-being of children in Child
Welfare.
♦ States, territories, tribes, and their localities
charged with addressing the needs of young chil-
dren who interact with the child welfare system
need to develop and track shared outcomes for
the mental health and well-being of these chil-
dren. e federal government, state and tribes
should make these data available to support plan-
ning and foster accountability.
♦ States and localities charged with meeting the
needs of young children should track expenditures
in child welfare and across sectors that support
meeting their mental health and related needs.
♦ e federal government through Congress should
amend CAPTA to include the following:
– Annually report on indicators of social-
emotional wellbeing of those served by the Part
C program based on a range of demographic
factors including race/ethnicity and income.
– Annually report data on children deemed at

risk for social-emotional developmental delay
but who are at risk but not eligible for Part C
including information on outcomes for these
children.
– Require access to a range of empirically-
supported practices, including validated screen-
ings to identify risk of social-emotional delay
and relationship-based/family-focused treat-
ments, for young children and their families.
– Ensure that the professional team that deter-
mines eligibility includes expertise in social-
emotional development for young children.
– Ensure through incentives that states develop
guidelines and have written agreements in place
to support completed referrals for young chil-
dren at risk for social emotional delay but are
not eligible for Part C services.
♦ e federal government should better leverage
the system improvement opportunities for young
children in child welfare by aligning scal strate-
gies with the outcomes attained through eorts
like the Child and Family Services Review.
♦ e federal government should oer opportuni-
ties for states to be innovative by establishing
funding that supports demonstration which focus
on worker training, application of reimburse-
ment rates based on bundling multiple interven-
tions and services including parenting-related
interventions
__________

* e Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity law, enacted in 2008, requires equity in the provision of mental health
and substance-related disorder benets to that of physical health benets under group health plans.
** e Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 (CHIPRA) reauthorized the Children’s Health Insurance
Program (CHIP). CHIPRA nances CHIP through FY 2013. It will preserve coverage for the millions of children who rely on CHIP
today and provides the resources for States to reach millions of additional uninsured children.
Addressing the Mental Health Needs of Young Children in the Child Welfare System 19
APPENDIX
Strengthening Early Childhood Mental Health Supports in the Child Welfare System
Participant List
National Center for Children in Poverty, June 29, 2009
Mary Lee Allen
Director, Child Welfare and Mental Health
Children’s Defense Fund
William Arroyo
Medical Director of the Child, Youth, and Family
Administration
Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health
Daphne Terry Babrow
Georgia Infant and Child Health Services
Patti Banghart
Research Associate
National Center for Children in Poverty
Shirley Berger
Research and Policy Coordinator
Bureau of Child and Adolescent Services
NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
Johanna Bick
Graduate Student
University of Delaware
Charles Biss

Director of the Child, Adolescent and Family Unit
Vermont Department of Mental Health
Janice L. Cooper
Director, Child Health and Mental Health
National Center for Children in Poverty
Frances B. Duran
Policy Associate
Georgetown University Center for Child and
Human Development
Sonia A. Garcia
Director
Woodhull Medical and Mental Health Center
Tracey Garrett
Clinical Director
Progressive Life Center
Heather Halonie
Intertribal Child Welfare Training Partnership,
Wisconsin
Louisa Higgins
Research Analyst
National Center for Children in Poverty
Kadija Johnston
Director
Infant-Parent Program
University of California, San Francisco
Laurel K. Leslie
Associate Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics
Tus Medical Center, Floating Hospital for Children
Sally Melant
CPS Division Administrator for Permanency

Texas Department of Family and Protective Services
Julie McCrae
Research Assistant Professor
University of Pittsburgh
Child Welfare Education and Research Programs
Geo Nagle
Director
Tulane Institute of Infant and Early Childhood
Mental Health
Delfy Peña Roach
Parent Advocate, New Mexico
Ron Prinz
Carolina Distinguished Professor
Psychology Department
University of South Carolina
20
National Center for Children in Poverty
Martha Reeder
Program Manager, Early Childhood Initiative
National Alliance of Children’s Trust and Prevention
Funds
Lenora Reid-Rose
Director, Cultural Competence and Diversity
Initiatives
Coordinated Care Services, Inc.
Karen J. Saywitz
Associate Director, UCLA TIES for Families
Department of Pediatrics, UCLA School of Medicine
Center for Healthier Children, Families and
Communities

Charles J. Sophy
Medical Director
Los Angeles County Department of Children and
Family Services
Dan Torres
Associate
Center for the Study of Social Policy
Anthony J. Urquiza
Director, Mental Health Services/Clinical Research
CAARE Diagnostic and Treatment Center
Department of Pediatrics - U.C. Davis Children’s
Hospital
Allison Wallin
Post-Doctoral Fellow
Infant Caregiver Lab
University of Delaware
Addressing the Mental Health Needs of Young Children in the Child Welfare System 21
Endnotes
1. Shonko, J.; Phillips, D. 2000. From Neurons to
Neighborhoods: e Science of Early Childhood Development.
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2. Bornstein, M.; Tamis-LeMonda, C. 2004. Mother-infant
Interaction. In Bremner, G.; Fogel, A. (Eds.), Blackwell
Handbook of Infant Development. Malden: Blackwell Publishing.
3. Wulczyn, F.; Barth, R. P.; Yuan, Y. Y.; Jones-Harden, B.;
Landsverk, J. 2005. Evidence for Child Welfare Policy Reform.
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4. Leslie, L. K.; Gordon, J. N.; Lanbros, K. ; Premji, K., Peoples,
J.; Gist, K. 2005. Addressing the Development and Mental
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and Behavioral Pediatrics 26: 140-151.
5. National Survey of Child and Adolescent Wellbeing. 2005. CPS
Sample Component Wave 1 Data Analysis Report. Accessed Sept. 1,
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6. Cichetti, D.; Curtis, W. J. 2005. An Event-related Potential
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7. English, D. J.; Upadhyaya, M.P.; Litrownik, A.J. ; Marshall,
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National Survey of Child and Adolescent Wellbeing. 2005. CPS
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2010 from />nscaw/reports/cps_sample/cps_report_revised_090105.pdf
8. Pollack, S. D; Vardi, S.; Bechner, A. M.; Curtin, J. J. 2005.
Physically Abused Children’s Regulation of Attention in
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9. Kaplow, J. B.; Widom, C. S. 2007. Age of Onset of Child
Maltreatment Predicts Long-Term Mental Health Problems.
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10. Lieberman A. F.; Van Horn P. 1998. Attachment, Trauma,
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423-43.
Osofsky, J. D. 2004 (Ed). Young Children and Trauma:
Intervention and Treatment. New York: e Guilford Press.
Pynnos, S; Steinberg, A. M.; Piacentini, J. C. 1999. A
Developmental Psychopathology Model of Childhood
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Biological Psychiatry 46(11):1542-1554.
11. Blatt S. D.; Saletsky R. D.; Meguid V.; Church C. C.; O’Hara
M. T.; Haller-Peck S. M.; Anderson J.M. 1997. A Comprehensive,
Multidisciplinary Approach to Providing Health Care for
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National Survey of Child and Adolescent Wellbeing. 2005. CPS
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Silver, J.; DiLorenzo, P.; Zukoski, M.; Ross, P. E.; Amster, B. J.;
Schlegel, D. 1999. Starting Young: Improving the Health and
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12. Children’s Bureau. (ND). Child and Family Services Review:
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13. McCarthy, J.; Marshall, A.; Irvine, M.; Jay, B. 2004. An
Analysis of Mental Health Issues in States’ Child and Family
Service Reviews and Program Improvement Plans. Washington,
DC: National Technical Assistance Center for Children’s Mental
Health, Georgetown University Center for Child and Human
Development & American Institutes of Research).
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid.
17. Cooper, J. L.; Vick, J. E. 2009. Promoting Social-Emotional
Wellbeing in Early Intervention Services: A Fiy State View. New
York: National Center for Children in Poverty. Mailman School
of Public Health, Columbia University.
18. See endnote 3.
19. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
Administration for Children and Families Administration on

Children, Youth. 2007. Child Maltreatment 2007. Washington,
DC: U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
Administration for Children and Families.
20. Ibid.
21. Leslie, L. 2009. Setting the Context: What the Data Says
– Assessment and Treatment in the Early Years. Presented at
Strengthening Early Childhood Mental Health Supports in the
Child Welfare Systems Emerging Issues Roundtable: National
Center for Children in Poverty. New York. June 2009.
22. See endnote 19.
23. Oser, C. 2006. Infants and Toddlers in the Child Welfare
System. Presented at TAIMH Annual Meeting and Conference.
Sept. 8, 2006.
24. See endnote 19.
25. Ibid.
26. Maqruder, J.; Shaw T. V. 2008. Children Ever in Care: An
Examination of Cumulative disproportionality. Child Welfare
87(2):169-88.
27. Johnson, E. P., Clark, S.; Donald, M.; Pedersen, R.; Pichotta,
C. 2007. Racial Disparity in Minnesota’s Child Protection
System. Child Welfare 86(4): 5-20.
28. Robinson, C.; Rosenberg, S. 2004. Child Welfare Referrals to
Part C. Journal of Early Intervention 26: 284-291.
29. Bundy-Fazioli, K.; Winokur, M.; Delong-Hamilton, T. 2009.
Placement Outcomes for Children Removed for Neglect. Child
Welfare 88(3): 85-102.
30. See endnote 23.
31. See endnote 19.
32. Wu, S. S.; Ma, C.; Carter, R. L.; Ariet, M.; Feaver, E. A.;
Resnick, M. B.; et al. 2004. Risk Factors for Infant Maltreatment:

A Population-based Study. Child Abuse & Neglect 28:
1253-1265.
22
National Center for Children in Poverty
33. Burns, B. J.; Phillips, S. D.; Wagner, R. H.; Barth, R. P.;
Kolko, D. J.; Campell, Y.; Lanksverk, J. 2004. Mental Health
Need and Access to Mental Health Services by Youths Involved
With Child Welfare: A National Survey. Journal of the American
Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 43(8): 960-970.
34. McCrae, J. S. 2009. Emotional and Behavioral Problems
Reported in Child Welfare Over 3 Years. Journal of Emotional &
Behavioral Disorders 17(1): 17-28.
35. See endnote 33 and 34.
36. See endnote 33.
37. Ibid.
38. Ibid.
39. Warner, L. A.; Pottick, K. J. 2006. Functional Impairment
among Preschoolers Using Mental Health Services. Children
and Youth Services Review 28: 473-486.
40. Westat Inc. 1993. A Report on the Maltreatment of Children
with Disabilities. Washington, DC: National Center on Child
Abuse and Neglect.
41. Herman-Smith, R. L. 2009. CAPTA Referrals for Infants and
Toddlers: Measuring Early Interventionists’s Perceptions. Topics
in Early Childhood Special Education 29(3): 181-191.
42. Barth, R. P.; Scarborough, A.; Lloyd, E. C.; Losby, J.;
Casanueva, C.; Mann, T. 2007. Developmental Status and Early
Intervention Service Needs of Maltreated Children. Washington,
DC: Department of Health and Human Services, Oce of the
Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation.

43. Zimmer, M. H.; Panko, L. M. 2006. Developmental Status
and Service Use Among Children in the Child Welfare System:
A National Survey. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent
Medicine 160: 183-188.
44. Buchanan, A. 1996. Cycles of child maltreatment,
Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons. Main, M.; Goldwyn,
R. 1984. Predicting Rejection of Her Infant from Mother’s
Representation of Her Own Experience: Implications for the
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8: 203-217.
45. Mcae, J. S.; Barth, R. P.; Guo, S. 2010. Changes in Maltreated
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46. Ibid.
47. National Survey of Child and Adolescent Wellbeing.
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48. Ibid.
49. Hurley, K. 2009. Deciding if a Mother is Fit: e Flaws in
Psychiatric Evaluations. Child Welfare Watch 17: 13-19.
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51. McCrae, J. S.; Barth, R. P.; Guo, S. 2010. Changes in
Maltreated Children’s Emotional-Behavioral Problems
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52. Knitzer, J. 2000. Early Childhood Mental Health Services: A

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53. Harden, B. J. 2007. Infants in the Child Welfare System: A
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54. Horwitz, S. M.; Owens, P.; Simms, M. D. 2000. Specialized
Assessments for Children in Foster Care. Pediatrics 106: 59-66.
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55. Cooper, J. L.; Vick, J. E. 2009. Promoting Social-emotional
Wellbeing in Early Intervention Services: A Fiy State View. New
York: National Center for Children in Poverty, Mailman School
of Public Health, Columbia University.
56. See endnote 43.
57. See endnote 42.
58. Ibid.
59. Leslie, L.; Hurlburt, M. S.; Landsverk, J.; Rolls, J. A.;
Wood, P. A.; Kelleher, K. J. 2003. Comprehensive Assessments
for Children Entering Foster Care: A National Perspective.
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60. Romanelli,L. H.; Landsverk, J.; Levitt, J. M.; Leslie, L. K.;
Hurley, M. M.; Bellonci, C.; Gries, L. T.; Pecora, P. J.; Jensen, P. S.;
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Practices for Mental Health in Child Welfare: Screening, Assess-
ment, and Treatment Guidelines. Child Welfare 88(1): 163-188.
61. See endnote 55.
62. See endnote 51.
63. Rosenberg, S.; Smith, E., ; Levinson, A. 2005. Rates of Part C
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Special Education Programs. Washington, DC.
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65. See endnote 59.
66. See endnote 21.
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e Status of Children’s Mental Health Policy in the United
States. New York, NY: Columbia University, National Center for
Children in Poverty.
68. Warner, L. A.; Pottick, K. J. 2006. Functional Impairment
among Preschoolers Using Mental Health Services. Children
and Youth Services Review 28: 473-486.
69. See endnote 67.
70. McCarthy, J.; Marshall, A.; Irvine, M.; Jay, B. 2004. An
Analysis of Mental Health Issues in States’ Child and Family
Service Reviews and Program Improvement Plans. Washington,
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Development and American Institutes of Research.
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72. Pears, K. C.; Kim, H., K; Fisher, P. A. 2008. Psychosocial
and Cognitive Functioning of Children with Specic Proles of
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73. See endnote 70.

74. Montoya, L. A.; Giardino, A. P.; Leventhal, J. M. 2010.
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75. See endnote 41.
76. Berko, M. C.; Leslie, L. K.; Stahmer, A. C. 2006. Accuracy
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77. Ibid.
78. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,
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79. Stahmer, A. C.; Sutton, T. D.; Fox, L.; Leslie, L. 2008. State
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U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. News Release.
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A. K. 2010. Discretionary Funding in the Patient Protection and
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Dawes, D. E. 2010. e Health Equity Provisions in the Health
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83. Silver, J.; Dicker, S. 2007. Mental Health Assessment of
Infants in Foster Care. Child Welfare 86(5): 35-55.
84. Ibid.
85. American Academy of Pediatrics. 2002. Health Care of
Young Children in Foster Care. Pediatrics 109(3): 536-541.
86. Glisson, C.; Green, P. 2006. e Role of Specialty Mental
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480-490.
87. Cohen, J.; Work Group on Quality Issues. 1998. Practice
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Adolescents with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Washington,
DC: American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
88. McCrae, J.S. 2007. Review of mental health screening
instruments for use with young children involved with child
welfare services. Manuscript in preparation.
89. Sand, N., Silverstein, M., Glascoe, F. P., Gupta, V. B.,
Tonniges, T. P., & O’Connor, K. G. 2005. Pediatricians’ Reported
Practices Regarding Developmental Screening: Do Guidelines
Work? Do ey Help? Pediatrics 116(1): 174-179.
90. Cooper, J. L. 2008. Towards Better Behavioral Health for
Children, Youth and their Families: Financing that Supports
Knowledge, Unclaimed Children Revisited. New York, NY:

National Center for Children in Poverty, Columbia University
Mailman School of Public Health.
Rosenthal, J.; Kaye, N. 2005. State Approaches to Promoting
Young Children’s Healthy Development: A Survey of Medicaid,
and Maternal and Child Health, and Mental Health Agencies.
Portland, ME: National Academy for State Health Policy.
91. Cooper, J. L.; Masi, R.; Vick, J. 2009. Social-emotional
Development in Early Childhood: What Every Policymaker
Should Know. New York, NY: National Center for Children in
Poverty.
Cooper, J.; Masi, R.; Dababnah, S.; Aratani, Y.; Knitzer, J. 2007.
Strengthening Policies to Support Children, Youth and Families
who Experience Trauma. New York, NY: National Center for
Children in Poverty.
92. Knitzer, J. 2000. Using Mental Health Strategies to Move the
Early Childhood Agenda and Promote School Readiness. New
York, NY: National Center for Children in Poverty.
Based on input from Charlie Biss, Vermont Department of
Mental Health, “Strengthening Early Childhood Mental Health
Supports in Child Welfare Systems,” June 2009.
93. Beckmann, K.A.; Knitzer, J.; Cooper, J. L. 2010. Supporting
Parents of Young Children in the Child Welfare System. New
York, NY: National Center for Children in Poverty
94. Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family
Services. 2009. Coordinated Services Action Team (CSAT) and
Referral Tracking System. Accessed Sept. 1, 2010 from http://
dcfs.co.la.ca.us/katieA/csat/index.html.
CSAT is a result of the 2002 “Katie A., et.al vs. the State of
California” lawsuit. For details, see: />katieA/settlementagreement/index.html.
* Note on graphs:

Graph 1: Based on total unduplicated victimized children in
2006 (N=808,451).
Graph 2: Based on total death, N=1,168 reported in 39 states in
2006.
Graph 3: Based on unduplicated victimized young children
under age 6 (N=347,552); Age 6=18 (N=457,252).
Graph 4: Based on unduplicated victimized young children
under age 6 (N= 347,552).
Graph 5: Based on all investigated cases (N= 1,119,142).
Graph 6: Based on unduplicated victimized young children
(N=347,552).
Graph 7: Based on victimized young children (N=381,226). e
sample includes multiple types of perpetrators.
Graph 8: Based on victimized young children (N=381,226) and
age 6-18 (N=550,242). e sample includes multiple types of
maltreatment.
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